Hi you all,
A week later, I must confess I do feel different... Sadly, I took
only a brief Thanksgiving vacation at a VERY relaxing B and B east of the
Cascades. My "vacation" was short because my collaborator, a REALLY fun
woman at the NIH, was an invited seminar speaker this week and so I was
pretty busy this week planning things with her and the boss. I say it
feels different mostly because all of a sudden I am, like, wow -
transformed into some sort of near-equal with these two powerhouse women -
having lunches and dinners talking openly about women's issues, big
power/tenure issues, science issues, personal issues, laughing openly,
lamenting openly - everything (and when the collaborator trained with
Gallo - man, you know the stories are gonna be controversial, to say the
least). You just feel differently - you feel like some academic or
something. It was just weird! Nice weird - but weird. I like to think I
have had a decent personal friendship with the boss all these years
(though professionally distant) but this new thing was weird! Can't
decide if it's a different outlook or genuinely different.
The other thing that feels different is just my overall energy/confidence
(granted I gave a very confident thesis talk). Today, I spent the day
giving lectures on AIDS to community college students, a yearly stint I've
done for three years now. I have NEVER felt so utterly at ease talking -
I thought I was at ease before - but I was SOOOO relaxed. It was almost
scarey! But it was great. And the positive feedback felt that much
better.
Anyway - I've gotten a lot of nice letters from a lot of great people.
Had to throw that in here. My NIH collaborator is paying me to finish
some big experiments that she cooked up; I'll thus be part-time
post-docing (living here and doing the work) through February (could it
be... an income after all? she asks sarcastically) while doing all my
volunteer hours in some highschool in preparation for my ed. masters.
Anyway - had to update my silly revelations.
Still in something of a state of stupor, Sarah
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Sarah Boomer email: sarai at u.washington.edu
Dept. of Microbiology work phone: 543-3376
Box 357242 work FAX: 543-3376
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195
personal homepage:
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~sarai/GOBOOMSINK/GOBOOMSINK.html
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